Floral Twist Panel Pop Up Card

Here's a doggie themed card and gift card holder I made for my dear sister in law's birthday this year. Since her Shiba Inu "Sachi" and our Maltese "Polah" are such good pals that enjoy playing together, I wanted to showcase our pups' friendship on her card.
 

To create the paper pieced Maltese and Shiba Inu dogs for my card, I used dies from Marianne Design Eline's Puppies die set. I had the dogs peek out of an oval shaped frame that was cut using Spellbinders Elliptical Ovals and Nested Ovals dies. Four layers of the frame were cut and glued together for dimension. 

Benson font was used to create the shadowed "Happy Birthday" and "Celebrate" sentiments in Make the Cut design program. I used multiple Spellbinders floral dies: "Be Bold Blooms", "Mini Blooms and Sprigs", "Sealed Blooms" and a Karen Burnison die: "Fence Add Ons" for all the flowers and foliage on this card. Then, for some fun sparkle,  flat back clear dew drops were glued on to the front of the card.

On the inside, I used the mechanism from  Karen Burniston's "Little Twist Panel Pop Up" die set to create a fun floral pop up.

Colorful party hats for the pups were cut using "Party Puppy" die set from Cottage Cutz. 

I couldn't resist making another one of those fun pop up gift card holders I enjoy making so much using Karen Burniston's "Slider Box" and "Surprise Cube Pop Up" dies. Definitely making these for everybody, lol!

Kokeshi Landscape Accordion Card

I decided to try making another  three panel landscape accordion style card, this time with paper pieced kokeshi doll images for a birthday card for a sweet friend.
 

The original svg cutfile for the base of this card is the "Swing Through Card Valentine" purchased from the Lori Whitlock Shop. I enlarged the frame of the original cutfile to create a landscape oriented card that was 6.5 x 5 inches. I intentionally made this to be an oversized card so the kokeshi dolls would be large enough to easily piece together.

For the inset panels, I used Make the Cut Design Program to create and weld shadow layers of the kokeshi doll svg cutfiles purchased on Etsy. Digital papers were used for the kimonos and tiny blossoms for the hair were cut using Frantic Stamper "Petite Sakura" and Cheery Lynn Design "Baby's Breath Flower" dies.

Happy Birthday sentiment on the front panel was die cut from gold glitter and foil cardstocks using Hello Bluebird "Happy Birthday Words" die.  Computer generated sentiment on last panel uses Moderne and Hello Valentica fonts.

Although I was satisfied with how this card looked once it was opened, I found that getting the card to open was a little awkward because it seemed that the middle panel tended to buckle, despite my trying to reinforce it with an additional layer of cardstock. Next time I'll have to remember to try increasing the width of the frame borders to see if that would help.

I also made a matching gift card holder using the same kokeshi doll image on a fun pop up style drawer. As the drawer is pulled open, the decorative panel on the box pulls to a standing position.

Here's a side view of the easel-like mechanism connected to the back of the drawer that pulls the panel up. The svg cutting file for this box can be found at the Lori Whitlock Store here. Love the movement and surprise feature of this drawer style box!

Puppy's First Birthday

 My walking buddy's puppy, "Jaz" and our dog, "Polah" are good friends that play together every week. Though I don't think I've ever made a birthday card for a dog before, when "Jaz" turned one last week, I made this quick little Popping Flap style card to go the gift we got for her.

 

I wanted quick and easy so I tried to keep the front of the card simple by adding a large cut out sentiment. I used "Hello Valentica" and "Arial" fonts for the sentiment and created  two shadow layers in Make the Cut design program for it. I chose to use pearlescent cardstock to cut the letters and glitter cardstock for the bottom shadow layer to add sparkle. The cupcake was cut using MFT's "Cupcake and Sprinkles" die and blinged with Stickles glitter glue. The white background panel was dry embossed with a Sizzix "Three Dots" embossing folder.

This Popping Flap style card is always a favorite when I need a quick and easy pop up card. I used the video tutorial by BeeHappiLeaCraftin for the basic instructions to construct the mechanism for this card.

Since "Jaz" and "Polah" are both Maltese, I used Marianne Designs "Eline's Puppy" dies to create the two paper pieced pups for the pop up flap mechanism, trimming the flap close to the edges of pups. The oversized sentiment inside was created similar to the one on the front with pearlescent and glitter cardstock.

Here's a photo of the two little rascals, "Jaz" (on the left) and "Polah". They share the same dad but are from different litters, so I guess that makes them "half sisters"?